'Twas the week before Christmas

Evie had her Christmas party at school on Thursday. She somehow ended up in a group with her best girl friends. She was pretty excited to have a similar dress to her friend Sabrina. They couldn't stop noticing it every few minutes.

The craft went pretty well. We had all the moms and teachers assisting with glue, so it didn't get too messy. They all named their snowmen, and some of the names were pretty funny. Evie named hers "Evie Miller the snowman".

This is her class gingerbread house. I asked her what she helped with, but she said she didn't remember. She knows she put some candy on the house, and ate some candy too.

When she saw Santa, she pointed and shouted, "Hey! Don't you remember I already saw you at my Christmas party?"

I reminded her that she didn't have a chance at the party to sit on his lap, so she changed her tune, and wanted to talk to him after that. He asked her to leave out some cookies for him, and she said she would, but added, "this year, take a bite of all the cookies. Last year you didn't try my purple one."

Sweet girls loved Santa. One of her friends said for Christmas she would like "the same thing as Evie asked for". Her mom was pretty quick to jump in there and remind her to ask for the same toy she'd written her letter about so Santa wouldn't be confused.

I ran the bean bag toss, and some of those kids were great at it. One of the boys kept backing up each throw, and was nailing it from clear across the room. Evie's friend wanted to peek through the hole, and as I stepped back to get a picture of her, Evie smacked her right in the kisser with a bean bag. She didn't cry, though. The other kids thought it was hilarious.

After school, the girls wanted to play in the snow. It had all melted except for on our deck, so I let them slip around out there for a little bit.

They were very excited for Ben to get home because it was his birthday. They were anxious to give him the little things they'd made.

Ben asked me to make this stocking, but then didn't seem to like it, so I am super glad to have stayed up late several nights making it. It's the wrong yellow, wrong width, wrong length. So maybe I can do a better job next year.

They love him just as much at 33 as they did at 32!

On Friday Kara and Kiersten both had their winter celebrations at school. I was in charge of Kara's, and got busy with the kids, and didn't even remember to take pictures. I think they had fun. We played winter scattergories, winter trivia, and made pop-up "winter greeting cards". I did my best to keep it non holiday specific, but it's hard sometimes. She had fun, and Evie liked getting to hand out the prizes to the game winners. I didn't go to Kiersten's party, but popped in for a second to get something from her teacher. It looked pretty fun too, and she was very excited to tell me about it when she got home.

On Saturday, we went with a few of Kiersten's friends to see Annie. It was cute. I don't always love remakes, but this one was good.

Kara had a buddy to sit with too.

And we haven't stopped singing the songs since Saturday. Even Evie is singing along, and she didn't even go to the movie.

Jolly Holiday party

We had our Christmas party on Friday night. The girls were so excited the night before, and found it was torture to have to go to school all day. They were super excited when they got home. They wanted to get all dressed up as soon as I would let them. Ben talked me into letting them wear their new Christmas dresses. I don't think anyone's got messed up, so it turned out great.

Three little fancies. They didn't wear the coats for more than 5 minutes, but they sure looked sweet.

I'm lucky that Ben took care of most of the food/set up while I was getting ready for the party. I did come down to help him when I was finished. (not to mention spending all week cleaning and getting things ready.) I think we did a pretty good job on the amount of food this year. We didn't have near the amount of leftovers as we have in the past.

I only baked 2 desserts this year, so I felt that I got off easy enough.

Ben and I got dressed up too, though not as fancy as the girls. And isn't he looking great 50 lbs lighter than last year?

I didn't get a chance to sit on Santa's lap, but Ben was happy to oblige.

The kids were sure excited when the big guy showed up at the door!

They were all very sweet asking their funny questions, and telling Santa that they love him.

One of the kids asked if he was the real Santa, so Todd took a peek at his I.D. He checked out.

He read the kids a story, and then he got offended and left because the adults were being too loud, and wouldn't quiet down. He told Ben that one of the adults made rude comments when he asked them to keep it down, so he left a little abruptly. I don't think most of the kids noticed anything was amiss, but it was still disappointing the way it all went down. I guess everyone has bad days, though.

One of the highlights was getting to spend time with this sweet little guy! He is just a great baby, and we have the same birthday!

I think everyone enjoyed the party despite the unexpected drama. Evie said that it was the best Christmas party ever.


Here's a few random crafts that have been keeping the girls and me busy. We bought a cardboard cone, and I attached gathered ribbon around in layers. Kiersten and I made this the day after Thanksgiving while the other 2 girls were at work with Ben.

It turned out cute. I love crafts that the kids can easily help with, but they still look great when finished.

Kiersten and I also made this picture frame craft. It was quick and easy. I just cut out the "Ho Ho Ho" with my cricket, and then glued them onto craft paper and framed them. While we were making it, Kiersten said, "didn't we see this on pinterest Mom?" and when Kara got home, she declared, "Mom! You stole that idea off pinterest!" So I had to laugh. Yes, I'm an idea thief, but isn't that what pinterest is for?

Here are the soup cans we made for the girl scout party. The girls painted them solid colors, and when they were dry, I added the details. We have a squishy red ball we used to knock them over. The girls seemed to like it. Evie is particularly fond of the little baby snowman. And if I save up more cans, I can keep adding to the game for next year. We also brought these out for our Christmas party on Friday.

I had fabric left over from doing situpons with the Daisy scouts, so I used it to make bean bags. We can probably keep using these for future meetings too, so I think they will get lots of use.

I made a big snowman bean bag toss game. I should have found a better way to stand up the board. It kept tipping forward, so I had to have the scouts take turns holding it for each other, but they didn't seem to mind. We also set this up on Friday, and I plan to use it at Evie's preschool Christmas party this week, so we've gotten good use out of it so far.

I found this cute wooden sign, and painted it a sparkly green. I wish I'd gone with red or gold, because it does kind of blend into the green wall a bit.

Evie made a cute picture that she wanted displayed on the fridge during our Christmas party. A few people even commented on it, so she was very proud.

I made this wrapping paper craft at the last minute while I was cleaning last week. I can't decide if I like it, but it will be easy to pull off the paper and do something different next year if I don't want to hang it again.

This is the craft I came up with for Evie's school party. I am really hoping that it will go well. It could get a little messy with the gluing, but I'm hopeful that the kids will be able to do it. Evie saw this practice one when I picked her up from school today, and was pretty excited, so that's a good sign.

We've really been feeling the Christmas cheer around here lately. My head is spinning just thinking of all the stuff I can do with the girls next week when they're out of school!

My busy girl

Karalee was very excited to test for her orange belt in Tae Kwon Do on Friday.

She did great from what I could tell.

Ben was there and I think she was really trying to impress him. She was the most focused I've ever seen her.

She was awarded the orange belt, and I forgot to take a picture after she got it. She is very proud of herself, as she should be. She works very hard. I would have liked to stay and watch the rest of the testing to know what to expect for next time, but we had to hurry and get her to basketball practice.

Her first basketball game was on Saturday. The last 2 regular practices were canceled for snow/ice, so they got some practice in the night before.

It was a little rough, and the girls took some time to figure out what they were supposed to be doing. The ref had to stop the game and explain the rules several times, but they all seemed to catch on eventually.

Kara did a fair amount of standing around, and trying to figure out what to do, but she was definitely trying, and kept pace with the rest of the girls.

Not sure who she's guarding in this shot.

They only play 5 minutes at a time, and then sub out. So she never seemed to get too winded or tired out there. The score was tied at 10-10 with only a minute left, and Kara ended up making the tie-breaking, game-winning basket! So that was exciting for her and her friends were really cute all patting her head or hugging her. I think that boosted her confidence, and I noticed at this weeks practice she was taking more chances, so that's a good thing.